


I'll Tell You No Lies

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Series: rareprompts [19]
Category: Free!
Genre: Canon Compliant, High Speed! 2 References, Introspection, M/M, haru pov, the hidden depths of strong silent types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4532367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one fell swoop, Yamazaki wipes the slate -</p><p>Not clean, no - that's not how it is between the two of them -</p><p>His hands remember. They're lined with the embers of his yearning, his striving, ashes smeared on his palms. When he slams them down just above Haruka's shoulder, he wipes the slate with memories, both pained and glorious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Tell You No Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hexachrome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexachrome/gifts).



> This one's for Chrome, an all round wonderful artist, reader and friend whom I am grateful to know! I hope you like this, it delves into a side of the two of them that I've always wanted to try my hand at exploring. (It's also the first actual rarepair Haru + Haru POV I've written, what gives?)

This is what they're made of -

Honesty, sharp edges and open wounds, inscribed through their veins in pinprick constellations. Hidden from the rest of the world. _Blink and you'll miss it._

They do not shine in the day. Theirs is a different kind of brilliance. It's hard to see it all, breathe in the heady rush of their secret, sudden collisions and the pictures in their stars, except on the darkest of nights. And then - all at once -

The truth is blinding, when it comes unveiled against a shattered sky.

_Ask me your questions._

_I'll tell you no lies._

 

/

 

He's grown taller.

He was always taller, but back then, he hadn't _loomed_ the way he does now, and he wasn't Atlas, with the weight of the world on his back. On a lazy afternoon in Haruka's living room, they'd talked of biaxial crawls and of chasing bottle caps, of getting faster, stronger; in the crossing of their paths, they left footprints that linger like a shadow. Always there, even when you don't think about it.

Haruka has not thought about it for years. Now that they are face to face again, he finds, to his irritation, that it means nothing, that in one fell swoop, Yamazaki wipes the slate -

Not clean, no - that's not how it is between the two of them -

His hands remember. They're lined with the embers of his yearning, his striving, ashes smeared on his palms. When he slams them down just above Haruka's shoulder, he wipes the slate with memories, both pained and glorious.

Unearthed, unbound, Haruka stares up into eyes that burn like the tundra wind.

 

/

 

He doesn't look at anyone else like that.

Not his teammates. Not Rin. The look he has for Rin is a different one - a softer, kinder one -

And Haruka knows that kindness, knows it well. It's always been there. He remembers letters, gritting his teeth by the poolside; remembers an infuriating stubbornness, arbitrary illusions and delusions of what _Haruka_ should be, for _his_ sake.

With others, he is gentle; when he's alone with Haruka, he is the kindest of all -

It's not like Makoto's kindness. It's fearless. Ruthless. And Haruka will walk over the cut glass of Sousuke's brutal truths, because the feelings that they carry are real, and he shows them to no one else.

 

/

 

They keep some things to themselves.

Even later, months later, when they've carved out a truce and a grudging acquiescence, they do not share _this_ out loud. Not when the rest of the world is watching.

Haruka has long learned not to ask, _why me?_ There's never any satisfactory answer to that question. So he does not ask why, does not wonder, for a moment, why Sousuke reserves that look for him, and _why him_ , to be the keeper of his agonies and his sacrifices.

They do not put things in words. They like it that way, both of them.

And Haruka does not ask, because when their gazes meet in airports and locker rooms, something in the dark of him comes unravelled; he smothers his own storms with silences because he does not lie, and Sousuke knows it.

There is no forgiving or forgetting in their exchanges, but there is understanding.

 

/

 

This is the answer Haruka could never give voice to -

Sousuke's boldness calls to him, flaring like a beacon from the shore. He's unafraid, and he'll _own_ his desires and devotions with a firm, unyielding heart, and Haruka, knowing his own selfishness, recognises something in him that he'll never have himself. It's difficult, unspeakably difficult, for him to give his _all_ so easily, so freely - he could never be that for Rin, or for anyone else -

They seek his approval, his friends; and they seek his happiness, for his sake.

Sousuke doesn't. In everything that he's asked of Haruka, he's never cared what Haruka thinks of him, never wanted Haruka's acceptance for himself, because he knows full well the pattern of the scars that he bears. He doesn't need affirmation.

There's a kind of liberation in that, and the shared space of their vulnerabilities is exposed, lit with shards.

They do not pick them up, sweep them under the carpet and pretend they're not there. Everything falls apart for a reason.

 

/

 

In the entireties of their loves, the flawed, the misshapen and the beautiful, they are indivisible; in their breaking, Haruka's confronted with the whole truth of what they are to each other.

When you lay your soul bare to a person, and they do not turn away -

You don't, either.

 


End file.
